Chinese textbook claims ‘sex degrades girls’, backlash ensues

A Chinese sex education textbook that has claimed “sex degrades girls” has sparked an online backlash on micro-blogging site Weibo.

The High School Sex Education book described girls that have premarital sex as “cheap” and that engaging in premarital sex would have a “tremendous negative psychological and physical impact on girls”. It also added that “girls do not increase the love they receive from boys by sacrificing their bodies, but rather are seen as ‘degraded’ by their ‘conquerors’,
as a result, sexual relations can cause women to lose love.”

The textbook was first published in 2004, but recently resurfaced after teacher Zhong Guanguan posted passages of the text on Weibo.

The Shenzhen teacher told Sixth Tone news outlet that she was “so angry” upon reading the textbook, adding that “the concepts are backward all the negative comments are directed towards girls”.
Chinese internet users accused the textbook of double standards.

The publishing group behind the textbook, 21st Century Publishing Group, told Global Times that its wording was not insulting and pointed out that words such as “degraded” were printed with quotation marks.

2000 copies of the book were issued to high school seniors in Jiangxi since 2004.

A female user on Weibo said, “it takes two hands to clap”, whilst another user said, “this makes me sick. As a man I can’t stand this. Since you want women not to have premarital sex, then please tell all boys to do the same.”

The publishing house should “name itself the 18th Century Publishing Group,” said another user.

The Education Department of Jiangxi told the Sixth Tone website that the books would be revised.

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Cohan has written for online publications including the Huffington Post, Gigwise, Time Out Singapore, The Metropolist, Zoo, We Plug Good Music and Redstar Qingdao. He has developed an insight into the East Asian community in the UK from his work at the British Chinese Project, an NGO that promotes political participation for the Chinese in the UK.